I. Field of Invention
The present invention is directed to a heating ventilation and air conditioning (hereinbelow HVAC) control system and method for controlling a device, a subsystem, and/or a process using a flash mini-card and, more particularly, relates to an HVAC control system and method for controlling a chiller using a flash mini-card.
II. Description of the Related Art
HVAC control systems generally use non-volatile storage to store instructions that control the device or process under the control of the control system. Traditional HVAC control systems use a hard drive with a hard drive controller to provide non-volatile storage for the instructions that control the device or process under the control of the HVAC control system. More recently, non-volatile storage devices such as the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association (PCMCIA) card (hereinafter "PC Card") and the smart card serve as non-volatile storage for such control systems.
The PC Card is a credit card sized device that is frequently used as an auxiliary memory or an auxiliary input and output device (e.g., a modem card) in notebook computers. When the PC Card is used as a non-volatile storage device, the processor of the control system interacts with a PC Card controller that retrieves instructions from the PC Card.
A smart card is a plastic card about the size of a credit card with a microchip embedded within the plastic card. The smart card can be loaded with information for use by a processor associated with the control system to provide non-volatile storage. Unlike a magnetic stripe card that holds a small amount of information on a magnetic stripe, a smart card contains a larger amount of information including, for example, application programs. As with the magnetic strip cards, a smart card requires a reader such as card reader when used with a control system.
During boot-up, a processor associated with a control system may use a basic input/output system (BIOS) to support the initial configuration of the processor. BIOS is a program the processor uses to get the computer system started after initial power-up. BIOS resides in non-volatile storage such as an EPROM. Further, BIOS manages data flow between the computer's operating system and attached devices such as the hard disk, keyboard, mouse, and printer.